Fredericton police will soon start wearing body cameras

Members of the Fredericton Police Force will soon be adding a new piece of equipment to their uniform — body cameras.

Six officers will wear body-mounted cameras during their shifts, recording video that’s aimed at improving policing efforts as part of a 90-day pilot program.

READ MORE: Canadian police forces moving towards costly body cameras

Fredericton Deputy Police Chief Martin Gaudet says the officers will wear the body-mounted cameras during their 12-hours shifts. He says the goal is to capture police interactions with the public.

“With these body-worn cameras maybe we can capture some information, some video, some evidence out in the field,” Gaudet said.

He says the force is working with their corporate legal team to draft policy that will determine when the officers are able to turn it on. Officers will be required to turn the cameras on in the car as they’re dispatched to a call.

“Once you’re on-scene, it’s about trying to understand what’s going through the officers’ minds as they’re working together and approaching that call even before they actually attend the location,” Gaudet said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Once you're on-scene, it's about trying to understand what's going through the officers' minds as they're working together and approaching that call even before they actually attend the location," Gaudet said.

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Gaudet says the force is building on its prior experience using body cameras approximately five years ago.   He says they’ve resolved issues they once had with video storage.

“We realized the technology isn’t really in the cameras, the technology is where to store it, so we gather this information out on the street, we come back, so where would we put it?  We would have had to have gone back to the city and said ‘can we buy $20,000 dollars worth of service to store videos and pictures and audio,’ which wasn’t smart,” Gaudet said.

Fredericton City Councillor Stephen Chase says the pilot project builds on the importance of using technology to help supplement the city’s ability to “provide good public safety services to the people of Fredericton.”

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Chase says it’s part of the revolution of using technology to improve the city’s way of doing business and says it’s a way to capture more evidence for files.

“It’s important that we adopt technology, but in this case the body worn video camera promotes greater confidence in policing services, accountability, as well as providing the officers with the assurance that the information that’s collected supports their action,” Chase said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's important that we adopt technology, but in this case the body worn video camera promotes greater confidence in policing services, accountability, as well as providing the officers with the assurance that the information that's collected supports their action," Chase said.

The force is currently doing beta testing and will let the public know when they go live with the pilot project.

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Gaudet says the front line officers are excited about the new technology.